TechEd-2021 SAP Analytics Track Q/A Summary (SAP D...

bhavinvyas · ‎11-17-2021

This blog covers Q/A summary for some of the sessions delivered during SAP TechEd 2021 for analytics track on day 1.

Day 2 - https://blogs.sap.com/2021/11/18/teched-2021-sap-analytics-track-q-a-summary-sap-dwc-sac-bw4hana-day...

Date – 17^th Nov. 2021

Product(s)

SAP Data Warehouse Cloud

SAP Analytics Cloud

SAP BW4HANA

Track – Analytics

Subtrack(s)

ANA - Discover Enterprise-Ready Data Warehousing

ANA - Making Strategic Decisions with SAP Analytics

ANA - Discover Enterprise-Ready Data Warehousing

ANA - Applying Analytics End to End

Explore the Present and Future of Data Warehousing from SAP [ANA100]

What do you consider as "BW hybrid"? Any BW that is on-premise?

BW hybrid and hence the BW/4 Model Transfer is only available for BW/4. However, you can connect also connect your BW system directly to SAP Data Warehouse Cloud but cannot take advantage of an automated transfer. To decide on your journey forward with a BW system from 7.3 upwards you might want to consider the BW bridge.

Is BW on HANA also supported for the transfer to Data Warehouse Cloud or is it exclusive to BW4HANA?

With the BW bridge we will offer you a real possibility to transition your BW on HANA system towards SAP Data Warehouse Cloud.The BW/4 Model Transfer however is only available to BW/4 systems.

Can the business catalog be aligned with the catalog in data intelligence?

With the Business Catalog in SAP Data Warehouse Cloud we are striving for what we call a ONE catalog solution that brings together the cataloging solutions like SAP Analytics Hub, SAP Data Intelligence Data Catalog, etc.

What is future of BW4HANA?

BW/4 HANA remains a valid option for customers that want to continue their enterprise data warehousing as-is either on Premise or as a Private Cloud Edition offering. However for customers that are keen to take advantage of SAP Data Warehouse as the public cloud offering they can utilize the BW bridge in order to transition to SAP Data Warehouse Cloud.

which protocol provide dwc? like OData? to consume the data.

We will allow Data Consumption via an oData API early next year. Today you can already consume data via the ODBC interface.

how the BW/4HANA 2021 release should be interpreted in this narrative?
BW4HANA --Still exist?

SAP BW/4 HANA remains unchanged and will continue as-is. No change to the end of maintenance.

Is SAP's ultimate data warehouse strategy to ultimately replace BW/4HANA with Data Warehouse Cloud?

SAP Data Warehouse Cloud is the strategic public cloud offering of the SAP's Data Warehousing portfolio. With the SAP BW bridge we help customers in their journey transitioning to SAP Data Warehouse Cloud.

Once we move to BW/4HANA, EP is not more and have to move to BI/BO right?

BW/4HANA is an ABAP based system the Java components are no longer there so EP is become obsolete. Now we need to move to SAC mostly.

How does the extraction works in Data warehouse cloud ? is it via the same framework ODP.

Data Extraction in SAP Data Warehouse Cloud is not based on the ODP framework. We take advantage of SAP Data Intelligence available under the terminology of Data Flow within SAP Data Warehouse Cloud. Apart from that we allow data replication via Smart Data Integration and Smart Data Access.

How does SAC combine data from BW/4 and DWC in a transition phase , when BW bridge is in place?

With the BW bridge you would transition your BW/4 analytical objects (composite provider, query) into SAP Data Warehouse Cloud. This is also where you then should combine the data.

Why do you not create an ODBC connector for use with 3rd party tools?

We offer two options: A generic database connector to connect to 3rd party sources and we have an ODBC interface that can be used to ingest data into SAP Data Warehouse Cloud.

You mention an oData API for DWC but what are the plans for true jdbc query capabilities?

Today there is already an ODBC interface that allows for relational data access on data sitting in SAP Data Warehouse Cloud.

How would you define the BW bridge concept? is it BW/4 system on cloud serving DWC?

The BW bridge should be seen as a transitioning path towards SAP Data Warehouse Cloud for customers that want to take advantage of SAP's Data Warehouse Cloud value propositions. While retaining a stable and continuous data integration. Helping you to focus on transitioning your analytical models to SAP Data Warehouse Cloud.

Are there any size constraints in SAP DWC? Are there any different sizing considerations on DWC (when compared to on premise BW4/HANA)?

I recommend you to look at,

https://www.sap.com/dmc/exp/2020-01-datawarehousecloudcalculator/index.html

Best Practice Modeling: Introducing a New Model for SAP Analytics Cloud [ANA204]

Does the new model have better performance in terms of story opening, refresh, filter selection and data action run time?

Performance is always a "it depends" thing. That being said, if you had a very large number of accounts, you might see a boost using measures.

does the conversion apply for import data only or for live data models as well?

The new model is for import data. Live data's remote (proxy) models are unchanged, at least for now.

Exists something similar to temporal hierarchy join from bw/4 here?

Not Now.

Major downside of new model is it does not support conditional formatting. Any idea, when would it be available?

No, at least not for now.

why is it necessary to have a measure in the new model? It doesnt let you save if you do not have a measure in the new model.

You can go with accounts only as well but you need at least one cardinal entity; account or measure.

In the future, will SAP support scheduling model refreshes at Minute level? It would be nice if we have an option to schedule it every 5 or 15 mins.

not in the short to medium term, but long term, we'll be able to accomplish this.

Copy Step in Data Actions do NOT work within New model as source and classic model as target or the other way around. How to copy data between models then?

You can work around it using the link function and advanced formulas. We plan to add the ability to have copy steps from the account to new models in the future

It would also be nice if there is a dedicated window in SAC to monitor and manage all scheduled models, just like in BO CMC (Instance Manager).

It is one of the things that we have on the future todo list.

Is that possible with this new model to set an easy way to Adding/Deleting model components after the initial model creation?

yes. dimensions can be deleted and added after the model has had data loaded.

Is there a target date for the new model to support Live data sources?

live data sources are a separate animal. That being said, we have long term plans for sharing fact tables between SAC and Hana Cloud and DWC. Long term plans only at this point though. no release date for now.

Discover Use Cases from Live Customer Projects on SAP Data Warehouse Cloud [ANA201]

When using data replication: is there a speed limit. How's the performance?

Only limited by the speed of the plumbing serving up data.

I feel DWC is Nxt Gen EDW for current Digital Needs?

its not more EDW coz data is growing enormously and scalability is primary. hence Cloud Data warehouse are getting popular and eliminating infra barriers.
SAP DWC is a great solution to provide self-service to LOBs. We are adding a BW Bridge for more advanced Modeling needs

How does SAP Data warehouse Cloud differentiate itself to databases which hyperscalers (such as AWS) provide?

SAP Data Warehouse Cloud is a value add solution on top of hyperscalar computing (we support several others besides AWS).
SAP DWC is vertically integrated with all the tools and easy to use interface to allow the self-service I mentioned before. Other solutions are really only databases and require additional products.SAP DWC also can access the SAP architectures. Other solutions require rebuilding all the business logic which is a large task.

My understanding is that SAC can have live access to data on Data Warehouse Cloud or can import data to SAC. Which was the case for the introduced use cases?

I think all of these customers are using Live access from SAC to DWC. Not sure of any acquired data in SAC. Several of them used LIve connections via DWC and SAC could read DWC.

Build a Business Warehouse Bridge to SAP Data Warehouse Cloud [ANA200]

Can we migrate BW 7.01 to Data Warehouse Cloud?

Conversion options starts from SAP BW 7.3 but you can migrate from 7.01 to SAP BW 7.5 first and then from SAP BW 7.5 to SAP DWC BW bridge

Sizing / Pricing for BW Bridge?

Price is consumption based. Please talk to your Account Executive for details.

Will BW Bridge will just move, can enhancement/modifications be made to the migrated models using BW Bridge in the bridge ?

enhancement/modifications are possible since we are using the BW Modeling Tools. You can build new use cases in the BW bridge as well.

how DWC is different than SAP HANA Cloud? Does it support columnar store?

SAP DWC is an application on top of SAP HANA Cloud to build Data Warehouse Use cases in a tool supported way.

Going forward BW will sunset and SAP will have one solution ie., DWC. IS our understanding correct?

SAP BW/4HANA will be supported until 2040 (You may need to go through different release upgrades based on your current BW versions) Between this timeframe hybrid use cases are available to find the right way to move from SAP BW to SAP DWC.

For more details on maintenance support of different SAP BW products, please refer these links.

https://community.sap.com/topics/abap/netweaver-maintenance-strategy

https://blogs.sap.com/2020/04/08/sap-bw-4hana-to-extend-maintenance-in-alignment-with-sap-business-s...

Data warehouse Cloud Supports Delta extraction Mechanism?

Sure, based on the source system delta options are available.

BW Bridge is licensed separately or included with DWC?

The feature itself is free of charge but you have to license your data footprint in the BW bridge.

So, does it mean that BW Bridge will have its own database / system ID ? Will there be life cycle management Dev-QA-Prod for BW Bridge ?

Lifecycle Management for DEV-Prod will be available.

What about BI - Integrated Planning ?

BI IP is not supported with SAP BW bridge. Here we are positioning SAP Analytics Cloud as the Planning application and SAP DWC as the data foundation.

Visualize Stories from SAP Analytics Cloud with Smart Business [ANA202]

Is the SAC integration to S/4 show here on premise available on S/4 2019?

This option is available from S/4HANA 2020 OP SP 0 release onwards.

How to transition from SAP ABAP World to SAP Analytics Cloud world?

Please check the SAC help document :

https://help.sap.com/viewer/00f68c2e08b941f081002fd3691d86a7/release/en-US/6ea0ee725a624eebbd0012a26...

For the connection build up: /ssb/... exists similar for bw/4 2.0?

Please check the wiki,

https://help.sap.com/viewer/00f68c2e08b941f081002fd3691d86a7/release/en-US/120b1729c7a844b2837d40347...

can we view the smart Business KPI tile in SAC?

Currently this is use case is not available.

You may also refer following blogs for SAP TechEd 2020,

https://blogs.sap.com/2020/12/09/teched-2020-sap-analytics-q-a-summary-sap-dwc-sac-bw4hana/

https://blogs.sap.com/2020/12/10/teched-2020-sap-analytics-q-a-summary-sap-dwc-sac-bw4hana-part-2/